The Workspace
Large Content Area
Give the content editing area the space the task needs. Keep utility windows and controls compact where they remain legible and operable. Excess padding can displace useful content, but compactness also has a cost if targets become difficult to reach. See Accessibility for activation areas, scaling and alternatives.
Keep Controls Compact Without Sacrificing Precision
A control’s resting size need not determine the precision available during use. Compact controls can reveal larger guides or adjustment surfaces when needed, then return the space to the content. Judge compactness by whether users can still make accurate adjustments and understand what they are changing. Saving space is of little benefit if every small correction becomes difficult.
Graphically Rich
Convey the purpose and meaning of controls and items with graphical previews / explanations. This could also be termed graphical feed-forward, this is particularly useful for abstract controls where it's difficult for users to grasp what exactly their choices will mean. The best of both worlds is when you can combine rich graphics to create an interface for abstract controls. For example, a gradient control can preview the colour transition rather than presenting its stops only as numeric values.
Direct Manipulation
Put editing controls in the content area - for example there are endless helpers and contextual tools in Google Sheets which speed workflows, in a graphics program this could be editing a gradient in the content area . Use direct manipulation where it makes the relationship clearer, with inspector or structural alternatives when the content is small, occluded or difficult to reach. See Direct Manipulation.
Customisability
Allow users to customise the interface to suit the way they want to work, or the kind of work that they do. Customising window layouts or toolbar contents are two of the most common ways of supporting this.
Place, Not Space
Barbara Mirel draws a distinction between designing an electronic "place" and an electronic "space."2 A space is neutral and generic — a blank canvas with controls. A place reflects the user's professional identity, roles, and responsibilities. When a video editor opens their timeline, they should see something that feels like their working environment, not a generic data grid. The workspace should evoke the user's domain and role.
Workspace Seeding
Expert users actively "seed" their workspaces with markers, reminders, highlights, and spatial cues — annotations that help them remember where they are, what they've done, and what needs attention.2 A 3D artist pins reference images in the corner of their viewport. A video editor colour-codes clips by scene. A data analyst highlights suspicious values for later review. This practice of workspace seeding is essential to maintaining situational awareness across complex, multi-session projects. Support it by allowing users to annotate, colour-tag, pin, arrange, and mark elements in their workspace — and by preserving these arrangements across sessions.
State Persistence
The workspace should survive interruptions and session boundaries without requiring the user to manually save or restore their working state. Jef Raskin argues that the system should maintain complete work state automatically — instant resume from any interruption, no "save" decision required.3 When a user returns to a project after a week away, the workspace should preserve useful working context, with all panels, selections, scroll positions, and annotations preserved.
Balance the Principles Against the Task
Interruptions and Changing Displays
Let non-urgent notifications wait, and avoid stealing keyboard focus during an edit. Preserve selection, mode, time position and the reason for a pending operation when work resumes. Show enough context to distinguish a paused task from one that completed while the user was away.
When a display is removed or its scale changes, bring off-screen panels and dialogues back within reach. Preserve the user's arrangement where possible, with a recoverable default layout. Check pointer travel and relationships between views on the actual multi-display setup.
Practical check: interrupt a precise edit, disconnect a secondary display and resume. Can the user find every panel, recover the selection and understand what happened while they were away? Distinguish restored workspace context from restored project content; Recovery and Versions covers the latter.